Volume 9, Number 1 · July 13, 1967
Not so Lost Causes
By George Lichtheim
The Catholic Avant-Garde: French Catholicism Since World War II
edited by Jean-Marie Domenach, edited by Robert de Montvalon
Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 245 pp., $5.95
The French Communist Party and the Crisis of International Communism
by François Fejtö
MIT, 225 pp., $10.00
Strategy For Labor: A Radical Proposal
by André Gorz
Beacon, 199 pp., $5.95
One of the surprises awaiting the perfidious Anglo-Saxon who crosses the Channel into Gaul (not to mention the Anglo-American who traverses the Atlantic) is that few people in France can be bothered to discuss political issues in economic terms. Whether it be East-West relations, European union, or the future of their own country, the French display an obstinate tendency to put politics first, and politics in France includes what elsewhere is known as 'ideology.' Even in relation to communism—allegedly a doctrine related to Marxian economics—this hereditary predisposition can be seen at work. The disputants do not trouble themselves too much about economic foundations; what engages their attention is the political and ideological superstructure.
Review, 4031 words
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